


You Survive

by beccaelizabeth



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-02-28
Updated: 2000-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beccaelizabeth/pseuds/beccaelizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grief is something Methos knows very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Survive

Richie sat on the couch staring at his half empty glass as Methos bade the last of the visitors goodbye. His cheeks felt brittle from the salt of his tears. //Kinda like my heart.// he thought, then gulped down the last of the whisky. //God, I'll miss her.//

"Refill?" Methos queried quietly. Richie just held up his glass. Methos poured until the glass was full, then did the same for himself and sat at the other end of the couch.

"You don't have to stay you know. I'm not exactly good company right now."

"I know." Methos replied simply. He settled in to the corner of the couch, comfortable and with a view of his young friend. //Young. That's a laugh. One hundred and two years old, older in mileage. Only young compared to you, old man.// Methos thought sadly. It was hard to watch the young ones die, but in some ways it could be harder when they lived, and went through all this. He sat and waited, happy to just sit, but there to listen if his friend wanted to talk.

"They didn't really know me today, did they? Any of them. They were all tears for her, but I was just the guy that made the arrangements. They looked at me like I was putting it on. The grief. I mean, why would I cry? I'm just the grandson. It's not like I'd been around more than a couple of years. Not as if I'd, oh, been married to her for fifty seven years." Richie finished bitterly, and gulped some more of the spirits. It didn't really help, you had to drink too damn fast just to keep ahead of the healing, but it burned pretty good going down. Good to have some feeling inside, even pain. "Her family, her friends. Those that could bother to take a flight out here. They none of them knew me."

"They hadn't seen you for twenty years." Methos said quietly. "Only Watchers and Immortals get the long view, and most of them couldn't come to anything so public any more."

"Yeah. I know. It's just... so hard, you know? God, you would know. Thanks for coming today. I know I've been kind of out of it. I just... all the people I buried, and now this... I hate this part. When they die. They take pieces of you with them until you don't know whats left any more. And it hurts so bad. She's dead, Methos. They all die, and you survive. That's the worst."

"No." Methos flinched, then sighed and closed his eyes. //He didn't mean that personally, old man.// "Sorry. I mean, not dying, that's is bad." he continued. Then in answer to Richie's questioning look he decided to explain a little more "But it's not the worst."

"Great, tell me the good news why don't you. So it can hurt worse than this. Just kill me now and get it over with." Rich said. It didn't sound as much of a joke as he'd hoped.

Methos sighed and stared into his glass. "It will get worse. You'll wake up every day and you'll hurt. Right now, there's a part of you that still can't believe she's dead. You keep turning to tell her something, show her something, and every time you do you remember. And it hurts. And one day you will look for her and she wont be there, and that last little piece of you will finally accept that she is gone. You'll feel like she died all over again. But you'll survive." Methos took a small sip of the drink. One of them had to stay sober tonight, much as he would have preferred otherwise. He looked up to see Richie staring at him intently, and he almost whispered as he said the rest. "But the day after that, you wont look for her. Then, later, you'll go the whole day without thinking of her at all. First you'll be guilty, that you are moving on without her. Then... Then you will forget. For hours, for days. For years. Eventually, you'll meet some friend, or read some book, and for the first time in a hundred years you'll think of her. And it won't... hurt... at all..." Methos held Richie's gaze for a long moment. "That's the worst. You survive, and you heal, and no matter what happens around you, no matter who you love or who dies or what goes up in flames around you, you will wake up some day and realise- you are alive. And you will go out, and simply live. When you know that- when you know that it will always be the case..." Methos trailed off and sighed, then blinked. Richie moved for the first time in several minutes. He raised his almost full glass again and downed it in one. Silently, Methos poured him some more.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a long long time ago. It, er, doesn't reflect my current skill level... I hope...
> 
> "These are speech marks" (which you know) but //these are thought marks// , which were standard use at the time.


End file.
